So, Hayao Miyazaki May Not Be Retiring After All

So, Hayao Miyazaki May Not Be Retiring After All

Maybe it’s time everyone just stops reporting on Studio Ghibli for a while, or at least wait for decent translations to come along. Last week, the internet freaked when an interview with Studio Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki seemed to suggest that the studio was shutting down…until clarification revealed that it was just likely going through a restructuring. And, remember those reports that Hayao Miyazaki was retiring? You can scratch those too.

Variety reveals that the famed anime director (we ranked all his films for your convenience) may get back behind the camera again to make something for the Ghibli Museum. “This is my guess, but I’m thinking it will be something short,” Suzuki said. So, there’s hope for fans that there is still more to come from Miyazaki. As for the studio, Suzuki reconfirms they’re just figuring stuff out at the moment.

“We’re changing the way we make [animation],” he said. “We wanted to make a dream company. We thought we would make what suited us and not make what didn’t suit us. We were able to realize (that dream) to some extent and we’re very happy about that. But now we’re at a point where we’ve got to think about what we’ll do next.”

This seems more like the writer's lack of information than "the internet's". That Miyazaki might produce some short films for the museum has been common knowledge since he announced his retirement. Similarly, the articles I read about Ghibli shut-downing did not indicate it was a permanent cease in production. This isn't news.

This isn't really new. Plenty of people guessed this would be the case before. He retired from DIRECTING FEATURE FILMS. Making a few shorts exclusively for the Ghibli Museum was always in the cards. And he's still one of the heads of the company, so he'll be producing films, and maybe even help write one or two. This isn't him saying he's going to make another feature. So that headline is deeply misleading.